Singing, part I - my singing history

I don’t recall when I started singing, or a time when I didn’t sing. I do recall my first audition, or, rather, the outcome – it was for the 5th-6th grade choir in school, in 5th grade, and I did NOT get in. Not some elite choir, mind you, but just regular kids at public school. I found this hard to believe, since I had been singing in “Junior Congregation” choir at temple for several years already, and my mother even went in and talked to the music teacher, but, no deal, I was not allowed in the choir. Over the years I have heard people tell stories about how something like this caused them to give up music or dance because someone early on told them they were not good enough, and I wonder how many talented people gave up because they didn’t get encouragement at the right time.

Fortunately I didn’t think all that much of the music teacher’s opinion, so I tooted away on the recorder in 5th grade, but in 6th grade I auditioned again for the choir, with the same teacher, and that time I did get in. I even have a recording of one concert, so that would have been about 1969, including those great hits, “The day is now over” and “Haul out the holly.” (Originally on a little reel-to-reel tape, but now on CD.) And incidentally the recorder playing went pretty well, and to this day I occasionally get together with people and play recorder consort music – I have my own set of recorders in 3 sizes.

In junior high, I took up guitar and folk singing. My mother signed up for a guitar class at the local Jewish Community Center and bought a cheap guitar. That lasted a very short time and I don’t recall ever hearing her play, but the result was a guitar in the hall closet. For the most part I taught myself to play, and I was interested enough that I remember we packed it up so I could take it to summer camp in Georgia, where I sang a few songs over the P.A. on the days I did the wake-up radio show.

I sang in choirs all through junior/senior high, which was all one school, but no auditions required until Senior Choir, which was for grades 10-12. Then there was Vocal Ensemble, a quite elite group of 24, grades 11-12, and requiring one year of Sr. Choir first. I was in Sr. Choir in 10th grade and enjoyed that, and in May of that year I did not sign up to audition for Vocal Ensemble, figuring maybe the following year I would be ready. The sign-up list was posted for about a week, and on the last day, the director asked me to come up after class and said he noticed I had not signed up to audition and suggested that I sign up. That seemed to be a pretty good clue that I might get in, so I went ahead and auditioned. Getting into that group was probably the most significant thing that ever happened in terms of singing, and I was somewhat aware of that even then. I was in the group for my final 2 years, and we sang for various local functions as well as in school concerts. It was quite prestigious to be seen in our (dorky) plaid outfits on performance days – almost as good as the drill team getting to wear their uniforms on game days. I think that was the most enjoyable time for me in terms of a performing group.

Up until the end of senior year, I never took any voice lessons. It didn’t occur to me that people took lessons just to SING, and I was taking piano lessons, which I’m sure was sufficient expense for my parents. I finally did take some lessons that summer, AFTER being accepted into the voice program at Heidelberg College. Then when I got there as a freshman and sang for my teacher, he said it would probably take us 6 months to undo the bad vocal habits I had been taught over the summer.

My 4 years of voice at college pretty much went downhill from there. It actually was the worst time for me in terms of singing. I was afraid of my teacher, but he was considered the best teacher for the mezzo voice, and I was supposed to feel very lucky that I got into his studio. I have some recordings from that time period, particularly my junior recital, and while I was not horrible, I was not good, and I sounded old, a lot older than I sound now. My teacher finally put me out at the end of junior year and said he’d be surprised if any other teacher would even take me. I had been singing in a local church choir the whole time I was there, and one of the other choir members was one of the voice professors, a mezzo herself, and she was happy to take me in for my senior year. I made a lot of improvement that year, but not enough to be in any way ready for my grad school audition in March, which went very badly, and I knew it would – I had already enrolled in library school for the following year.

I have a vague memory of singing at some sort of coffeehouse while at library school, and when I took a semester off, I sang and played banjo in a benefit show. Once I started working full-time, I moved to Clifton in the early 1980s and discovered the Queen City Balladeers, and for 5 years or so that was my main music activity, performing at the coffeehouse as well as in 3 of the Edensong concerts in Eden Park, once as a solo act, once as part of Walter Craft’s band, and once with my own bluegrass group, Sheryl’s Front Porch Band.

During the late 1980s/early 1990s I had a managerial job that required evenings and weekends, often on short notice, and I was exhausted most of the time, so I didn’t do very much with music. Then in 1995 I transferred to a desk job, strictly weekdays 8-5, and I started thinking about doing some music again. I was at a “Rise up singing” party, invited as the guitar player, and it was probably about my 3rd one of these when I commented to one of the other women about how bored I was playing “Take me home, country roads” at every party. She said if I wanted to sing a lot of new music, I should come to the Cincinnati shapenote singing group, and she gave me a bookmark with the location and everything. I told her I would go.

Probably if I had not told her I would go, by the time it rolled around I would have chosen not to go, but I generally follow through, so I did go. It was mid-summer, and a very small group, I think 7 people, and one sang so loudly that I literally could not hear myself, and at the end I told my friend I didn’t think this activity was for me. She asked that I give it another try, and told me that the loud person was from out of town and not usually at our group (he is now a friend, but still very loud!) So I did go again and got hooked on it, bought the book, and for several months spent a few hours a week practicing beating time and learning how to lead from the book.

The local group meets monthly and occasionally does extra singings or performances, and there are several conventions nearby, so for a while I was doing that once or twice a month. At a regional singing in Yellow Springs, I happened to meet the director and accompanist for a Cincinnati classical chorale of 20-24 people, the Cincinnati Camerata, and they had put out leaflets about an upcoming concert. I went to that with a friend, and all through it, after each number, he’d say, “You could get into this group!” and then showed me the blurb on the program about auditions coming up in about 3 months. I finally said I would call about an audition if he would not pester me for the rest of the show.

I may write some details of the audition in a later installment about auditions, but the very short version is, I was accepted into the Camerata right at the end of my audition, in part because I can sing a low F and he needed that on a particular piece. This is probably the most elite group I was ever in. The first year was a lot of fun, in part because it was new, and a few of the men were very welcoming. Over time, though the cattiness in the women’s sections got tiresome, and the director was hot-tempered, often justifiably, because people did not learn their music at home like they were supposed to. Also, there were several choir directors in the group, and two of them started to hire or recommend me for choir subbing or special occasions, and once I started doing that, I felt overloaded with rehearsals, so after 2 years with the Camerata, I left the group. I still attend their concerts, and I have no regrets – it was a great experience, but now they are doing mainly very modern repertoire, which is not the kind of music I like to sing.

My contacts from there led to being invited to sing with the Bach Association of Cincinnati, which I do for part of the year, and I continue to do choir subbing, though generally not for pay since the economy tanked. During a summer pick-up choir gig in 2009, I met the person who it ends up was about to become the former director of Women in Song, a west side women’s choir, and while my main interest was to work with him again, he suggested I do it anyway, saying he had heard they had a promising young director taking over.

Women in Song is not anywhere near as demanding as Camerata. It is all just “regular” people, though an audition is required. I did mine by sending the director a couple of MP3s of my singing. We do 2 concerts a year, with big breaks in between, so that allows me to stay with the Bach group and also do a bit of shapenote and other things. The most interesting thing, other than finally singing in an all-women’s group and making some female friends, is that the director is a male SOPRANO, formerly of Chanticleer. I am actually learning a lot from him and finding a few high notes that have eluded me for about 30 years. Also, since I have never sung in a women’s group, and quite a bit has been written for that voicing, I am doing music that is new to me, which I always enjoy.

All of the choir singing has gotten my voice back to a fairly classical sound, and that has made shapenote problematical. While the local group is used to my voice and rather enjoys it, I have been criticized on several occasions (including right to my face) by out-of-towners who say I do not sing it “right”, or who assume that I sing the way I do to be snobby. So I have cut back on that activity. Maybe once I can no longer do the classical singing, I will go back to it on a more regular basis.

That brings you right up to today, preparing for next month’s Women in Song concert. I’ll also be joining the director’s church choir just for that concert, since it is a joint concert and I’ll already be there, so why not sing with them? I will sing with just about any group if given the chance!

Possible future installments : auditions ; how to sing ; shows – the good, the bad, and the extremely weird.